What would a clean Lance have been like

if he was nothing but mediocre how on earth did he get that backing?

His cancer story created an incredible legend, just to associate with his comeback made good business sense for any organisation that backed him.

Still the best.

Contador hasn’t even admitted to the doping he was caught for. If you choose to believe he’s clean, that’s your decision. I personally think doping has still been rampant in 2012.

I think drug control’s are much tighter now, the gains to be made from doping while not getting caught are much smaller. I do think that Contador’s punishment was far too lenient, he should have been stripped of his titles and banned for 2 years from the date of the decision.

One of the current problems is the national organisations always seeming to back their own. Jamaican athletics for example will not sign up to the Caribbean drugs testing accord.

Just waiting for the day I find out Eddie Van Halen actually never took drugs and was teetotal and just pretended to be drunk and a drug addict….and instead of parting hard while on tour in the 80’s he was actually helping out at the local soup kitchen….I can’t lose another hero

) Or if Angus Young was miming.

That would be way worse than all this.

Who cares what Armstrong would have done as a clean rider, the only thing we really know is that he’s been full of it for a long time.

His cancer story created an incredible legend, just to associate with his comeback made good business sense for any organisation that backed him.

Plenty of other athletes have harrowing backgrounds, are you honestly suggesting that they basically took a punt on a totally normal guy and decided one day they’d invest millions and make him a global star?

That’s one of the most naive things I’ve read on here.

Lance was the best in an era of cheaters. So he was the best cheater.

Everything else doesn’t matter. If the cycling world wants to cry about the ‘lost years’ then why did they all keep quiet about it for so long. Draw a line, stop giving them press time and move on. That would punish them way more.

A man that decides to cheat at sport , regardless of his commitment to train ideserves no sympathy because he put effort in to train.

All the best professional sports people are the best cheaters, with a very few noble exceptions.

That’s one of the most naive things I’ve read on here.

You need to buy a dictionary.

Big Mig was a freak of nature though. Cycling Weekly put him throiugh a lab test recently and veen after many years of unstructured training and not riding over the winters he had VO2 numbers that would put him at the front of a national race purely down to his freaky rib cage.

Also tested positive
http://www.dopeology.org/people/Miguel_Indurain/

This was Salbutamol. Interesting (anorak) fact about this ‘dope’ is that fairly extensive independent testing has shown that there are no significant performance gains from this drug whatsoever. These tests have been published in respected peer assessed academic journals, yet most sports governing bodies insist on banning it or placing it on a restricted list; France ban it outright, even if you’re asthmatic. Indeed, I seem to recall that certain studies demonstrated far higher instances of muscle cramps reported from their salbutamol group, thus undermining performance.

I recall having a debate during a university Phys Ed lecture why this is so, without any supporting evidence. The best we could come up with that someone one day decided that if a healthy person dilates their bronchial passages, then they would allow even more oxygen in, thus enhancing performance. This opinion was likely passed on as fact, and adopted from here. Amazing (again, for an anorak).

In other words, the only people it can help are those who actually need it – asthmatics & COPD sufferers; those with a lot to gain. In a normal healthy population the effect is minimal, and in elite athletes non existent. However, it could be suggested that due to cyclists being more prone to upper respiratory tract infection, it’s not hard to see its place as a treatment to allow an athlete to train through some infections. I personally don’t see this as any more performance enhancing as a course of antibiotics.

What this boils down to is that Indurain remains the only professional cyclist to allow full access to his training records and lab test results (which I believe was the basis of the CW article) and showed a unique physique that enabled him to win.

has anyone watched the youtube vids of the armstrong win at the world championships, there was a fair amount of streakypiss luck about it

there was a couple of selections i.e. groups of strong riders that get away, thus thinning the numbers of available winners

then Armstrong breaks out of the front group with quite a way to go, and the rest of the group let him go because it’s way too far, they let him dangle. then the chase group start playing cat and mouse amongst themselves as to who will start the chasing, they leave it for too long and the chasers are about 10sec away when Lance crosses the line.

Incidentally one of the main chasers is Indurain, the group want him to chase so that they can sit on his wheel and then sprint when LA is caught, Indurain calls their bluff, cos he’s won bigger races than the worlds

the Worlds is a strange race really, only in the last few years have riders started taking it seriously again – it’s a one day race that isn’t in the middle of the one-day racing season, but it’s straight after the Vuelta, when a lot of the riders are beaten from riding Spain and the TdF, bear in mind that it’s over different courses each time so if you are having a good year but the course doesn’t suit your style then you’re stuffed….

For me the big point, and it’s one I’ve not seen answered although it’s been raised (most eloquently by Deviant) is that if he was nothing but mediocre how on earth did he get that backing?

Can you not think of anyone else mediocre who was good at selling themselves who managed to get lots of funding

Have you considered that his nationality was a factor – would US postal have sponsored an Italian cyclist so much- federal money to help a Non US athlete achieve. What about Trek and Nike.
Perhaps he just excelled at being american, marketable and self promotion [ surely you cannot want to deny that]. He had talent, no one is denying that, but he was nothing special pre cancer and pre drugs in terms of Grand tours he was absolutely nowhere NOWHERE – anyone care to post up his Grand Tour results prior to cheating and after and tell me the man thing was not drugs?
Even now some of the lies about how he achieved are still being clung too

Mediocre and Nowhere….

…wow, those are some strong suggestions to throw around.

You’re talking about a man who was a two time US triathlon champion at 18 and 19 years old, his fitness at that age suggests he would’ve found success in whatever athletic endeavour he turned his attention to.

From Pantani’s book:

The 1991 Settimana Bergamasca, a 10 day stage race pitting amateurs against professionals was won by a 19 year old Lance Armstrong.

Yeah, sounds like he would’ve done nothing in the sport eh?!

He has 3 TdF stage wins and several one day Classics wins pre cancer, i wouldnt call that medicocre….as i said in another post, for how long was cancer hindering his performance before the diagnosis in ’96?….did we only see a snippet of what Lance was capable of?….frightening thought.

By all means criticise the doping, criticise the witness intimidation, the less desirable character triats etc etc….but to blatantly ignore his teenage success and early career successes makes people seem ignorant about the sport and the potential he had.

Lance was always a road cyclist, to make the transformation from a good flat rider, a promising junior, a good one day rider etc to Grand Tour winner is hardly the stuff of legend….putting national bias aside what would one think of the story about a 2008 Olympic track champion who decides to switch to the road and wins the TdF just 4 years later?….sounds ridiculous doesnt it?….i would say thats more of a turnaround than Lance going from Classics wins and a few TdF stage wins to overall Champion.

He has 3 TdF stage wins and several one day Classics wins pre cancer

Wasn’t he already doping then (Bestsy Andreu allegations)

if he was nothing but mediocre how on earth did he get that backing?

Because he had the drive to win and do what was needed to get that win. The bullying is part of that drive, he wouldn’t have anything around him that got in the way of the win.

http://www.cyclismas.com/2012/06/lance-armstrongs-business-links-a-flowchart-by-dimspace/

1994 he targeted Ghent-Wevelgem as a 1 day race he was going all out to win. he came mid pack and 3 riders from Geweiss came 1,2 and 3 – and guess who were the Geweiss doctors? Conconi and Michele Ferrari

1996 he wins Ghent-Wevelgem

It’s entertainment, nothing more, nothing less: same as TV, cinema, radio, whatever. Who cares if he drugged, this is epic:

You’re talking about a man who was a two time US triathlon champion at 18 and 19 years old, his fitness at that age suggests he would’ve found success in whatever athletic endeavour he turned his attention to.

and yet you have to cite that rather than his “clean2 [ they may not have been] achievements in a grand Tour because they are medicocre

From Pantani’s book:

The 1991 Settimana Bergamasca, a 10 day stage race pitting amateurs against professionals was won by a 19 year old Lance Armstrong.

Yeah, sounds like he would’ve done nothing in the sport eh?!
See above

He has 3 TdF stage wins and several one day Classics wins pre cancer, i wouldnt call that medicocre….as i said in another post, for how long was cancer hindering his performance before the diagnosis in ’96?….did we only see a snippet of what Lance was capable of?….frightening thought.

Yes it is frightening that someone could think that- have you any evidence to support your view it hindered him

By all means criticise the doping, criticise the witness intimidation, the less desirable character triats etc etc….but to blatantly ignore his teenage success and early career successes makes people seem ignorant about the sport and the potential he had.

A potential he never fullfilled in any meaningful way n a grand tour until he started taking huge quantities of performance enhancing drugs – you are ignoring what he actually achieved “clean” in your eulogy in a grand tour which is nothing

Lance was always a road cyclist, to make the transformation from a good flat rider, a promising junior, a good one day rider etc to Grand Tour winner is hardly the stuff of legend.

I await the long list of other riders you wish to cite who won one day races, did not finish grand tours and then remarkably went on to win them. Must be loads if it is not the stuff of legends – one day racers tend to not be brilliant in tours
..

.putting national bias aside what would one think of the story about a 2008 Olympic track champion who decides to switch to the road and wins the TdF just 4 years later?….sounds ridiculous doesnt it?….i would say thats more of a turnaround than Lance going from Classics wins and a few TdF stage wins to overall Champion.

So cav could win the Tour Cancellera ? Boardman? Gilbert?
ts not astrong argument as i cannot think of anther classic one day roder who was rubbish at grand tours who went on to win them never mind dominate them

You are ignoring the fact LA was already doing the training for grand tours as he actually competed in them and he won the odd stage but in the GC he was absolutely nowhere at all until he did drugs.

The results are all there to be seen you can cling to the hope that cancer stopped him winning pre cheating if you wish but I dont see any evidence to support anything other than a decent rider improved massively by using performance enhancing drugs.

Perhaps next reply you can use his Grand Tour record pre cheating to highlight your view of just how awesome he was before cheating?

I await the long list of other riders you wish to cite who won one day races, did not finish grand tours and then remarkably went on to win them. Must be loads if it is not the stuff of legends – one day racers tend to not be brilliant in tours

Why are you (and all the others) only saying this now? You’re so vehement that he was just some nodder until he started doping surely you didn’t need other people producing a dossier of evidence to highlight this, you presumably sat there in 1999, throwing things at the television because the scandals of 1998 had been surpassed by this colossal cheat?

100!

Thee thing that springs to mind here which appears to have been proven to be correct is – that if something appears to good to be true…

Njee

That is a fine collection of logical fallacies in a very short piece; you could of course have refuted my claim with evidence.

Yes, road cycling has a dirty past. Yes, some of it’s Champions have been dethroned but the sport is bigger than it’s failings. The races still hold their lure and and young kids still dream of winning them. Christ, the other day I heard 10 year old boys in the street arguing over who was better, Sky or BMC, like they were argueing over Man U Vs Chelsea.

Lance without the drugs? Top 10 I think.

That is a fine collection of logical fallacies in a very short piece; you could of course have refuted my claim with evidence.

I did say that it’s all the naysayers, not just you.

I don’t have evidence, I don’t really follow pro cycling that avidly to recite results and I’m certainly not reading 1000 page documents on the subject! Most seem to have decided he was a club cyclist who achieved nothing until he started doping, I’m not trying to refute that. People have such strong opinions I don’t understand why we’ve not seen these threads before. Smacks of bandwagon jumping for me.

Junkyard you have missed the point entirely, i’m not saying he is clean and i have no idea when the cut off point came when he went from clean to doping either….what i merely highlighted was some exceptional results as an 18 and 19 year old that marked him out for greatness early on….because frankly the cries that he’d be nowhere without drugs are ludicrous.

and yet no one can cite examples of grand tour greatness pre drugs only one day and a “lucky” Worlds.

I never said you thought he was clean either so it is not me missing the point.

Njee + others he was an exceptional one day rider and a very mediocre [ pro] Grand Tour rider

to claim he would have achieved all this without his huge drugs regime, designed to enhance his performance, seems unlikely give how poor he was [ relative to to the other pros] in Grand Tours. Hence why we have this sort of debate as the facts are he was mediore pre drugs – you can say we are all saying he is a club rider but it is a pointless logical fallacy.

You can say he was marked for greatness early and its “ludicrous” on but his results pre drug cheating were not great so it is a weak argument or you would be using his results to prove your point

Junkyard, you are spectacularly far off the mark. Nobody here (certainly not me) is arguing that Lance is/was clean, whether before or after he got cancer.

Whether the transformation from good one-day rider to multiple TdF winner is plausible or not is a pretty pointless discussion, for the simple reason that it happened.

I’m not really fussed whether or not that was a transition from clean one-day rider to doped TdF winner or he was doped before. It happened. What is the purpose of your argument?

Have you actually read the thread?

Nobody here (certainly not me) is arguing that Lance is/was clean, whether before or after he got cancer.

I dont know why that needed clearing up tbh as no one has said it
The “clean” before cancer “” referred to the fact some [ on this thread] have claimed he was dirty prior to cancer- I offer no pinion on that.

Whether the transformation from good one-day rider to multiple TdF winner is plausible or not is a pretty pointless discussion, for the simple reason that it happened.

The thread has been about whether LA would have been this good without drugs – hence me pointing out his record pre drugs is not great whilst agreeing that we cannot know for certain.I think we all know what he achieved and how. The thread title is a clue as to what we are debating

I’m not really fussed whether or not that was a transition from clean one-day rider to doped TdF winner or he was doped before. It happened. What is the purpose of your argument?

as above or read the thread or the thread title.

Junkyard, i have used his results to make my point….did you not get the bit about his athletic ability as a teenager?….US national triathlon champ at 18 and 19 and then winner of a 10 day stage race in europe at 19 years old….in a field of promising youngsters including Pantani (who also finished top 10 i believe)…..

Given this obvious athletic ability i think he’d have been fine as a clean pro….would he have won the TdF?….probably not, because guys like Ullrich, Pantani etc were doping and would’ve always beaten a clean Lance….what if the whole field was clean?….thats a different story altogether.

What we do know is that his main rivals at the time, Vinokourov, Pantani, Ullrich etc were doping also and he beat them….from what his former team mates are stating in their witness accounts Lance wasnt shy about his drug use, team mates asked him for EPO and he willingly shared the goodies….from some of the faux outrage on here you’d think he was the only one doping, loads of the top riders worked with the same tainted Doctors and had access to the same performance enhancing drugs….as somebody else said, while Ullrich was getting fat in the off season and partying hard Lance was out training hard.

The drugs make a difference obviously, during that era a good drug regime was the difference between a domestique and a winner but the athlete needs to be good to begin with….that’s what his early results show.
You could give me all the same drugs that Lance had and i still wouldnt win the TdF….a massive lack of understanding on this issue is what leads people to make silly statements that an athlete’s success has been ‘all drugs’.

The thread has been about whether LA would have been this good without drugs

Well, clearly he performed better as a result of using performance enhancing drugs (as would anyone else). You don’t need 4 pages of discussion to work that out.

Armstrong was an exceptional competitor, in his athletic ability, drive, focus, preparation, strategy, and mental strength. His early results show his talent, and you cannot become a Tour winner just by talking drugs. EPO won’t give you the intelligence and race nous you need to win road races. Grand Tour winners do not arrive fully formed, so using his early TdF results to suggest he was not a potential future winner is misleading.

However, his innate talent is irrelevant. He cheated, on an epic scale, and he has been prosecuted and sanctioned accordingly.
What he might have been will never be known, and it is pointless to speculate.

did you not get the bit about his athletic ability as a teenager?

Did you get the bit about him not completing the tour prior to returning on drugs to win it 7 times?

Given this obvious athletic ability i think he’d have been fine as a clean pro….would he have won the TdF?….probably not, because guys like Ullrich, Pantani etc were doping and would’ve always beaten a clean Lance….what if the whole field was clean?….thats a different story altogether.

He was a good one day rider and not a great Grand tour rider. hence why I asked for another example of ths transformation- there still are none as far as i am aware. Hence my doubts and asking you to look at what he actually achieved rather than what you think his potential meant.
the he would have won it if everyone was clean is just part of the myth IMHO. To repeat we have no way of knowing if he just got the best boost from drugs for the reasons made much earlier so it is just a guess to say he would have beaten everyone clean.

a massive lack of understanding on this issue is what leads people to make silly statements that an athlete’s success has been ‘all drugs’.

Straw man – you all keep doing this- who said this? I think we all know you need to train .

Believe what you want the facts are he was a good pro with super youth results, good one day pedigree and a poor TdF clean and an awesome one on drugs where he was unbeatable.
Read into what you want as this s getting circular

I think that we are arguing from 2 different perspectives. You have equated Lance’s limited TdF success pre-cancer to being “pre-drugs”. I don’t necessarily agree that that’s the case (Frankie Andreu’s testimony claims he was doping before he had cancer).

Pre-cancer, he won the worlds and a number of TdF stages (as well as a good few one-day classics). For many riders, one TdF stage win alone would be the highlight of their career. Many riders have had DNFs or poor finishes in the GC before going on to be successful.

e.g Contador was 30th in his first tour.
Indurian DNFd twice, then came 97th, 47th, 17th and 10th before finally winning it for the first time.
Pedro Delgado DNFd twice before winning on his 6th Tour
Stephen Roche had 3 finishes well outside the top 10 before winning
Merckx didn’t even compete in the tour until 2 years after he first won the world champs
Wiggo finished 123rd, then DNF’d the following year before his 4th place in ’09.

deviant – Member

What we do know is that his main rivals at the time, Vinokourov, Pantani, Ullrich etc were doping also and he beat them….from what his former team mates are stating in their witness accounts Lance wasnt shy about his drug use, team mates asked him for EPO and he willingly shared the goodies….from some of the faux outrage on here you’d think he was the only one doping, loads of the top riders worked with the same tainted Doctors and had access to the same performance enhancing drugs….as somebody else said, while Ullrich was getting fat in the off season and partying hard Lance was out training hard.

Were the other guys doping as much, or with the same level of impunity as Lance? Lance apparently knew when testers were coming, so he had the chance to use saline and the like as needed. Could the other riders do this? Were they able to dope in training, but not to the same extent in the races?

Lance had the UCI in his pocket, to the extent that even if he did fail tests it didn’t matter. Did other dopers have that? Was a blind eye turned to everyone? I doubt it.

This thread is very silly – there’s just no way of knowing. But because Lance is such an arsehole I agree with Junkyard.

Read David Millar’s book. The old boys involved in racing believed doping could turn a club rider into a tour champion.

There are plenty of club riders on EPO who still can’t win E12s let alone a major tour, takes a lot more than a few syringes to make it.

There are plenty of club riders on EPO

I’m going to call you on that; there have been a few cases (e.g. Dan Staite a couple of years ago) but I think EPO use among club riders is very rare.